Near Miss of the Day 915: Cyclist slams on brakes to avoid driver who ignored him and turned across... but says “no point in reporting” due to Police Scotland’s lack of online close pass portal

*Warning: Video contains strong language, viewer discretion advised*

The lack of an online road safety reporting portal by Police Scotland has been highlighted by many cyclists, with several being featured on our Near Miss of the Day series, but yet the issue has gone unaddressed as another cyclist barely managed to avoid being hit by a driver who either failed to see him, or chose to ignore him and decided to make the turn anyway.

James was riding on Drybrugh Road in Wishaw, a town just south-east of Glasgow when a driver, waiting to join the road from Waverley Drive suddenly drove in front of him and turned right onto the road, forcing the cyclist to slam on his brakes to narrowly avoid hitting the car.

He told road.cc that he was just 10 minutes away from his home and this was his first close pass experience on this stretch of the road. However, he added that he's not going to upload footage of the near miss as there isn't any portal to do so.

"I never reported it to police as I do not think I can send the footage here in Scotland. I would have to go to the station I believe and then give them my cards etc. I am not sure how it works and even if they are going to do anything about it," James said.

Scottish cyclists currently have to use the Police Scotland Online Reporting Form, which is time-consuming and inconsistent, with how an incident is handled often depending on the attitudes of different police forces and officers.

> Delays to introduction of online road safety portal putting cyclists “at risk”, says Cycling UK

In March, Scotland’s police force came under scrutiny for not having a portal where cyclists can submit their close passes — unlike England and Wales where cyclists and other road users can submit video evidence of road traffic offences via Operation Snap and other police reporting portals, with road.cc reader Stewart criticising Police Scotland for making him go through a much lengthier process of providing evidence after suffering a dangerous near miss.

While a Digital Evidence Sharing Capability is being piloted in Dundee ahead of the expected national roll-out next year, it is not believed to be as strong or functional an option as the cancelled National Dashcam Safety Portal.

Last year, the charity Cycling UK said that delays to the introduction of an online road safety reporting portal are putting cyclists in Scotland "at risk" — after Police Scotland took over a year to report an alleged hit-and-incident which left a rider "unable to sit down for a week", leading to the case being dismissed.

Just two months ago, Police Scotland was once again under fire after the force said that while they run close pass operations with officers riding bikes, they don’t “tend to operate” on A roads — where many people ride their bikes regularly — as there’s a “safety element involved towards police cyclists”, after a cyclist, who was close passed by drivers several times, raised it with the police and asked them what do they intend on doing about the dangerous driving on such roads.

> Near Miss of the Day turns 100 - Why do we do the feature and what have we learnt from it?

Over the years road.cc has reported on literally hundreds of close passes and near misses involving badly driven vehicles from every corner of the country – so many, in fact, that we’ve decided to turn the phenomenon into a regular feature on the site. One day hopefully we will run out of close passes and near misses to report on, but until that happy day arrives, Near Miss of the Day will keep rolling on.

If you’ve caught on camera a close encounter of the uncomfortable kind with another road user that you’d like to share with the wider cycling community please send it to us at info [at] road.cc or send us a message via the road.cc Facebook page.

If the video is on YouTube, please send us a link, if not we can add any footage you supply to our YouTube channel as an unlisted video (so it won't show up on searches).

Please also let us know whether you contacted the police and if so what their reaction was, as well as the reaction of the vehicle operator if it was a bus, lorry or van with company markings etc.

> What to do if you capture a near miss or close pass (or worse) on camera while cycling